I have come across this phrase for a while now. It is another way of saying “the power of AND”.

Integrative thinking is part and parcel of design thinking: “What if we combine this AND that?” Etc.

Integrative thinking requires individuals who are comfortable with gray areas and paradoxes. Many great designers, scientists and counsellors are adept at this – the ability to hold seemingly contradictory concepts in their heads …

(I just found this note on my mobile phone. I wrote this about two years ago. Yes one of my phones is actually >2 years old.)

Here are three prods to kick start your business innovation:

What if you had to give away your product for free – and you had to find alternative ways to make a living from your business?

What if your customers disappeared overnight – and …

“Some students attached a suitcase (with a mac mini inside) that projected a little movie on the wall of the tunnel while the the subway was moving…”

We need more of this fun stuff to happen in other cities. If a city can spawn this sort of behaviour it speaks well of that city’s ability to support innovation….

Here is a nice collection of writing about Design Thinking on MIT’s Sloan Management Review

Thanks Bob!

De Bono points out “one of the major limitation of [traditional] judgement system of thinking is that it is REACTIVE rather than PRO-ACTIVE. This means that you criticise ideas rather than create them.”

Criticise = pass judgement = evaluate = analyse = play devil’s advocate = black hat thinking…. these should be reserved for the evaluation stage, and avoided as much as possible during the ideas-generation phase. We all …

Data visualisation is the next frontier in design; fuelled by the overwhelming volume of information we are all inundated with daily, and the need for timely clarity and insights.

Ergo: A new breed of experts is needed. The T-shaped expert with huge amounts of communications and soft skills (empathy, listening skills etc) – who can provide just the right amount of deep expertise, surrounded by appropriate levels …

I have often talked about the concept of doing pro-bono work for not-for-profit community organisations as a way of learning the art of innovation. Amongst other challenges and opportunities, many not-for-profits operate with fewer resources which force outside-the-box thinking so as to achieve more with less.

This is also true for emerging markets, or “blank slate” markets (Infosys COO S.D. “Shibu” Shibulal). Blank because there are less (or …

“There’s a massive failure of imagination [in the newspaper industry].”

Read Made by Many’s Why we don’t subscribe to Rupert Murdoch, and why we need a new kind of money; on the newspaper/magazine industry’s approach to the web, the state of news content on the web and the social media age, making money from news content, and micropayments in the social media age.

Interesting idea about micropayments in …

Another walk-by pickup at a bookshop:

The Tyranny of Dead Ideas – Letting go of the old ways of thinking to unleash a new prosperity by Matt Miller.

Today’s dead ideas:

The kids will earn more than we do.
Free trade is “good” (no matter how many people get hurt).
Your company should take care of you.
Taxes hurt the economy (and they are always too high).
Schools are a local …

Many multinational corporations are running out of fresh ideas to respond to the economic crisis. Instead of taking this opportunity to reinvent themselves and reboot the very business practices, beliefs and attitudes that has contributed to the current economic crisis, they choose instead to bury themselves deeper in those very same practices.

“He that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils for time is the greatest innovator.” …